


Cherchez la Femme

by charleybradburies



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Nikita (TV 2010), Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: (sort of), 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Clone Club-centric, Clones, Community: 1_million_words, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Family, Family Feels, Female-Centric, Government Conspiracy, Government Experimentation, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multiple Crossovers, Other, POV Female Character, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Superheroes, Superpowers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 19:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3867235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charleybradburies/pseuds/charleybradburies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A single moment is all it takes for everything to change.</p><p>For 100-women Prompt #54: Sister.</p><p>Title translates to: literally, "look for the woman"; proverbially, "a woman is probably at the heart of the quarrel."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cherchez la Femme

**I.**

Beth lays her head in her hands, her elbows harshly propping her up against the table. 

“I just can’t take this. All the lying, the sneaking around, the wondering. My freaking _boyfriend_ is in on this, this Project Leda shit, and just…I can’t keep doing this. Just pretending to live my life as though nothing’s wrong when everything’s gone so to _shit._ There’s one person I’d like to trust, but no, of course I can’t tell him about this bullshit. I _can’t_ get Art caught up in this. I can’t even tell him I like him, I mean, this whole clone situation is so far out of range.”

She takes another shot, shivering as the liquor trickles through her, and eventually looks back up at Danielle with her eyes still full of tears. 

“Put my work situation on top of that, and I can’t even _start_ to deal with anything. Dani, I’m totally off the rails.”

Danielle reaches across the table for Beth’s hands, gripping them desperately. Their eyes meet in that awkward gaze again, of looking at themselves while also most definitely not looking at themselves. Danielle pulls one of her hands away as a cough rises, and Beth pushes a handful of napkins to her so that the blood has a place to go.

“Beth, you _can’t._ You can’t give up, not now. You are the only one who can do this, _mon cherie,_ who can figure this out.” 

“And what will it do for us? You and Katja have a couple of weeks left; Aryanna, Janika, all the girls from Helsinki, all are dead already; Cos has already started coughing…”

“There are others. You _know_ others. What about Alison? Is she not worth solving this for? Is she any less a sister to you than I?”

Beth sighs. 

“And how am I supposed to get any closer? I know I am a cop, but Paul is ex-military, and he’s one of them. I can’t exactly keep my own self-awareness a secret forever.”

“I will do it,” declares Danielle, and Beth sits back.

“No, Dani, absolutely not.”

“Beth! Listen, I am dying anyway. It will be soon, very soon. Either from this disease or by the hand of whoever is hunting us. Let me do this, and it - my death - it will mean something. You will leave, get out of town, as far as you can, and then figure out the steps from there. If everyone believes you dead, they will no longer be monitoring you. You can turn the tables.”

“Dani,” Beth moans, starting to cry again, and this time she’s the one who reaches across the table. Dani obliges her and they sit there with their hands clasped together for a moment.

“You are the one who can take them down, Beth.”

**II.**

Beth spins around Nikita’s massive apartment, drinking it all in.

“So Leda and Castor were at one point run mostly by Oversight?” she asks eventually, knowing that Niki’s come into the room.

“Yes,” Nikita answers softly.

“Topside and Oversight worked together on a number of projects. The cloning projects have been passed around from agency to agency, country to country…whatever government will condone it and work with Dyad to push it forward. All top-secret, the whole nine yards to keep everything under wraps, _especially_ your identities.”

“That worked well,” Beth tries to joke, but it’s bitter. 

Looking at the bulletin board they’ve turned the wall over to see, it’s even harder to think of taking Dyad down. Dozens of clones, dead. Families, dead. Everyone practically without a trace, and for all she knew, only five (former) law enforcement agents knew anything about it without being directly involved in its potential success. 

But how could it be possible to unseat the powers that be when they were behind the throne instead of upon it?

**III.**

“How has no one noticed yet?” Alex questions, sipping her wine, and Michaela and Nikita both shrug. Birkhoff just gestures to his computer, indicating that the evidence is there. And the evidence is that no one seems to know that Beth Childs is gone.

“Art. Art _must_ know,” she pleads.

“Not according to the Internet, sweetheart,” he says, and his apologetic smile seems more genuine than many of the others he’s given her. 

She takes a deep breath.

“It’s not possible.”

“Beth, that’s a dangerous -"

“It’s _not,_ Birkhoff. He is my - _was_ my partner. And, my friend.”

Birkhoff raises his eyebrows at her, and though she considers slapping him, she knows her point will be better delivered peacefully.

“He has noticed. Danielle will have been taken to the police, yes?”

“So, the police know. And yes, he’s a detective…but none of the social platforms you were on in your last life, Beth, show that he, like everybody else you were theoretically friends with, have taken note of your death.”

“There’s another possibility,” Nikita adds suddenly, pushing herself up from her seat. 

“Birkhoff, find a way to the server for Beth’s precinct.”

“Seriously? Do you know how -" Birkhoff starts, abandoning his complaint at seeing Niki’s stern look. 

Typing goes on, he does his hacking thing that Beth barely understands a thing about but is incredibly grateful for, and then he pulls her chair over to the desk when he’s in. 

“Okay, all the death certificates issued recently.”

“No, you’ve got to go to cases first.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know what every person in Canada looks like, Birkhoff. I need to see what was investigated.”

He raises his hands in defeat before following her instructions. 

“Suspicious suicide, 28-year-old woman…here we go.”

Beth pushes her chair in front of his so that she doesn’t have to look over his shoulder.

“Who the _hell_ is Sarah Manning?”

**IV.**

She ducks behind the barrier, reloading her rifle and then peeking above it to continue firing. Alex soon joins her; they exchange knowing glances and minor insights as to positioning, and the ground rumbles again they speed back out to the depths of the battle. The few moments that they and their group get to communicate, it’s clear to all of them that something is different. Not something they can see yet, but usually when they tagged along with friends for their missions, they knew what the enemy’s game plan was most likely to be. 

But May had given them half a dozen options, and this didn’t seem to be going in any of those directions anyway.

Beth had begun the mission carrying the suspicion that the way May's team was blazing through the uncertainty was an American phenomenon, attributable to training; but when she rushes to try to protect one of May’s girls, Skye, who’s armed with only a single pistol, and Skye raises her arms at the three soldiers charging her and the wind seems to pick up around her and the trio is knocked easily twenty paces back from her, she isn’t so sure that’s the case.

**A.**

“Hey, Clone Club?” 

“Yeah, Cos?” Sarah replies, laughing at Felix offscreen but turning her gaze back to her computer. Alison’s sitting at pert attention, her most recent crafts displayed behind her.

“We’ve got a…potentially problematic situation,” Cosima says carefully.

“Just figure that out?”

“No, Sarah, this is different. This is big…massive, really. Like, almost definitely _really_ life-altering.”

“Yeah? Spit it out, we can take it. Right, Ali?”

“Mm-hmm,” Alison chimes. Cosima still looks uncertain, but she flails her hands in front of herself and continues.

“So, kind of as follow-up to this whole brain analysis deal, I got in touch with Art, and asked for what information they had on the state Beth was in when she died.”

“And?” presses Felix, coming up next to Sarah and slipping onto her chair beside her. She considers telling him to piss off, but the moment has too much weight after the mention of Beth, so she lets him stay.

“Well, I looked at all the information, like, multiple times, and I compared it to the information that Dyad had, and it was…different. Like, to say the least.”

“How different was that different?” asks Sarah.

“Long version or -"

_“English_ version, Cos.”

“Different medical history, including advanced respiratory problems…”

“Like yours?” Alison jumps, her face creasing even harder with concern.

“Farther along, but yeah. But um, _that’s_ not the crazy part.”

“Excuse me? I think Beth being sick is a _pretty_ big plot twist here,” says Sarah, and Cosima winces. 

“The crazy part…is that something else was different. As in, her genetical tag was different. As in, you’re not the only clone who faked their death that day. The girl that you saw…you know…wasn’t _actually_ Beth.”

**V.**

Beth slips into the restroom to adjust herself, making sure her fancy little earwig is properly positioned and that she can’t even recognize herself. She’d had hair changes before, she’d worn wigs before, and much more often in the past couple of years - but blonde was still a stretch. It didn’t look right.

Not that she didn’t look hot as fuck, she just…looked like one of her sisters, rather than herself. 

“Woah, woah, woah!” she hears Birkhoff exclaim, and she clears her throat.

“Hold on just a hot minute, okay, Beth? Jesus!”

She starts to hum - the Jeopardy theme would be too obvious, but she fiddles with her jewelry some more as she presses some random tune out of her too-glossy lips. The only other woman that had been in the restroom leaves, so she pulls her gun out and tries to soothe her nerves by cleaning it again.

“Beth, a confrontation’s already happening.”

“And?”

“The Manning chick, the soccer mom, your wonderful scheming ex…and your, um, partner.”

She’s only standing in front of the sinks, but she stumbles.

“Art?”

“Did…you have another?”

“Oh, piss off.”

“You _have_ been watching the Manning chick’s interviews,” he concludes, his tone conveying his being impressed.

“Considering the back-up plan was to masquerade _as_ the Manning chick, yes, I have.”

“Okay, oh, God! Beth, get to the South entrance ASAP. There’s been a change of plans.”

“I figured as much,” she deadpans, slipping her gun back in its holster and strutting out the door, slipping into the stairwell unnoticed and heading into and through the framework of the building until she reaches her destination.

“You don’t own us. You never could,” Beth hears someone saying - without a line of sight, she wouldn’t know who it was if the voice wasn’t so damn similar to her own. 

“You are patented! You are a scientific marvel, Ms Manning!” the older man chastises, a diluted wonderment sitting below his frustration with her. 

“And what? That means I’m not a human being? You work with human DNA, with manipulation, results, you’re working with human beings. Risks and all."

"The fact that you managed to create multiple people with the same basic genetic coding doesn’t mean you own our consciousness, our lives," Alison rushes to add.

“Oh, but it does.” 

Like in the footage Birkhoff had been able to get, the man’s voice is little more than a self-satisfied grumble. It in itself, even when he’d been speaking German and Beth hadn’t been able to tell what he was saying, sent shivers down her spine. The fact that he bore no official identity didn’t help him become any less a metaphysical evil; even without regard to his numerous projects manipulating human nature and biology, he’d slipped into living under the Overman theory, a religion by which he himself was God and he could do whatever he wanted to anyone. HYDRA had a million tentacles, a hand in every crisis. It was intimidating enough being in his presence even _without_ remembering that he held the key to her survival and the survival of her sisters and brothers and their families.

“We aren’t your bloody superhumans, you bastard!” Manning shouts, and Beth hears her gun and a couple of others cocking.

“And _they_ don’t belong to you either, for that matter,” adds Art. 

She hasn’t heard Art's voice in so long, and she can just feel herself inching towards the verge of tears, but Beth gulps and gathers herself as well as she can. 

Perched on the iron walkway just above the corridor to which the hidden door opened, she’ll only have a moment before the man notices her. There’s a telling knock at the brick wall, and Beth cocks her pistol.

“Hail Hydra,” the man says smugly, and knocks again. 

The door swings open, and he slips through. Partly out of anxiety and partly because Manning’s subsequent string of expletives - and honestly, a couple other aspects of this mission - is actually hilarious, Beth finds it hard not to laugh as he turns around. His expression is something between a smirk and a grimace, and Beth jumps over the railing and into the corridor. 

**“Like _Hell_ we will.”**


End file.
